Going Green–One Step at a Time

The Hudsons also paid about $200 to have a compression test performed on the house, in order to see exactly how much air leakage existed. But the test couldn’t even start—air was sucked through the attic fan and stairs at such a high rate, they couldn’t achieve any positive pressure indoors.

So Gordon installed a removable attic fan cover, since the attic fan typically goes unused during the winter. And he added an insulated door to the attic stairs.

All of this involved some work, but surprisingly little money—perhaps several thousand dollars total over several years. The actual energy usage reduction was pretty impressive.

Gordon calculated the difference in energy usage between 2005–2006 and 2006–2007 periods was 385 kWh lower per month, or nearly 40%, which saved them another $650 a year.

Since then, the Hudsons have taken additional steps, including installing solar-powered, motion-detecting floodlights, which come on automatically when a car pulls into the driveway. That way, they don’t need to keep a porchlight on.

They’ve taken other steps, such as turning off the computer at night, adding power strips with hard on/off switches for the PC and other electronic gear. Gordon was quite surprised to find his PC consuming 24W when it was turned off.Continued…

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